The Rune's Song
by child-dragon
Summary: A young woman finds one of the Outsider's runes. She is not the only person who wants to possess it, however.


I remember little of that last year of peace, before the plague. I often hear others speak of it, reliving those memories as if the act of giving them voice can bring them back. How the faces of their children were, before hunger hollowed them out, before disease stole their breath away. The quality of sunlight in the streets, before they grew filled with trash and empty of people, before we huddled away in our houses and choked on the smoke of the burning dead. These are precious things, our memories, and that last year is the brightest in comparison to what came after. Yet, as much as I try, I can remember so little of it. There are snatches here and there. Fragments. Little points of clarity. Like that year is a mirror, shattered, and I can only catch glimpses in the shards. Everything in between has been lost in the haze of the song.

I found the rune on my way home. I worked as a serving girl for one of the nobility. Not a terribly important man, moderately wealthy, and so I was the only servant in his employ. He was a reserved man, quiet, and it wasn't hard work. Long hours, on account of being the only one to maintain his house, but he paid well enough and made no other demands like some of the men of his station did. I could appreciate that.

I think, perhaps, he died from plague. After. I feel I should know this for certain.

It was at the back of an alleyway. Typically I do not go into the shadowy places of the city, for fear of who I might encounter, but something made me pause this time. It was such a bright day. I feel like that is my last memory of sunlight, so bright, against the back of my neck. I slowed at the mouth of the alleyway and it was as if the world slowed around me, grew still and quiet, and I stood stock-still while the rest of the people just flowed around me. I was listening. No one else seemed to hear. It was a song, thin, but with a low undertone that I felt more than I heard. Like it was in my bones, rumbling through the passageways of my heart and into my ears. I'd heard this song once before, I thought, when I walked past the slaughterhouses where they butchered the whales. I'd heard them singing while they died. Now, there was something in the darkness there, singing that same song to me.

As if in a trance, I walked into the gloom and stooped there along the back wall, pushing aside the wooden crates to find what was buried underneath. A piece of whalebone, round, etched with symbols that made me think of a compass. It felt warm in my hand. I tucked it down the front of my jacket, keeping it close against the skin, and the song grew dormant. Not quieter, just... dormant. Then, I turned, and walked out of the alleyway back into the sunlight.

My hand was cold for a long time after that, where I'd touched it. I'm not certain it ever felt warm again.

I kept the rune close to me. When I was home, it resided under the pillow of my bed. I shared rooms with two other women, also servants, and when I was alone – which was rare – I'd take it out and look at it. I feel like many of those memories are just that, sitting there, looking at it. Sometimes I'd take it with me to work, so that I could pause and stare while cleaning that great lonely house. I made certain to keep it well hidden. I couldn't explain why that was so important.

I started to have dreams after that. The details elude me, but I remember the theme. Walking alone in a place of broken fragments, like someone had taken the world and stirred it up, like scattering grains of rice. Always the song in the background. Singing. Once, early in the morning before the city was up, I woke with the song in my ears. I got up and dressed and walked through the city. I was no longer afraid. There were the city guards, of course, and the Hatter's gang to be concerned about. Yet these were only a distant memory for me, like they were a concern for someone else. I was elsewhere. I wondered if they'd even see me if I walked right past them.

I think, now, that this was fancy. I'm not so certain though.

I went to the slaughterhouse. I'd not been back since first hearing that song and realizing it was the swan song of the whale inside, bleeding out bit by bit. Now, the slaughterhouse was dark, the ocean black just beyond. So still. It was like I could step off the dock and onto the water and it'd hold my weight and I could just walk forever, on and on until the sun rose and turned that black mirror back into water and I sank into the depths. I had the rune in my hands, pressed close to my chest so that its song would wrap around my heartbeat, and I listened. Distantly, I could the whales singing. So many whales, each voice on top the other, echoes from the slaughterhouse. It stank of blood and rot. I stood there until I could bear it no longer, until the song grew so loud it was deafening, until I thought it would overwhelm the beat of my own heart and turn it into just another note in that chorus. I ran, the rune still in my hands. I just ran. And when I finally stopped I felt moisture on the line of my jaw and when I drew my fingers away, they were stained with blood.

The hearing in my right ear never quite recovered. I'm half-deaf on one side now.

I remember walking in the city, once, and I cannot quite say when or why it was. Perhaps I was going to work, or returning from it. Or perhaps I was just walking, aimlessly, floating in that sea of humanity. Adrift. The rune was with me, as it always was. There were men approaching me and while I knew we were just going to pass by, I somehow felt threatened by them. They were overseers, the both of them, and while I could not see their eyes from behind their masks I felt like they were staring directly at me. One of them carried a bulky device on his chest, like a box of metal, and he turned a crank as he walked. Slowly and methodically. There was a whining tune in the air, discordant, and the people found ways to walk a wide berth around them, their heads down and their eyes on the ground. I did the same. The music seemed to drown out the song of the rune until finally, the only thing I could hear was the music of the overseers. I was overcome with a maddening urge to do something – anything – to bring back the song of the rune. To attack them with my bare hands. To smash that infernal device. To run. To weep. I kept hold of that last strand of sanity I had left and continued walking, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other, all the while screaming inside. I continued on like this until I was past and the rune's song returned. It was the first time since finding the rune that I felt afraid. When I arrived home, cold from the encounter, I sat on my bed and cried. One of the other women I lived with asked if something had happened and I could not find the voice to speak to her.

She died two years later. This, I know for certain.

While my dreams were mostly bits and pieces, just impressions of an image, there was one that I remember as clearly as any memory. Perhaps it is a memory in truth, and not just the memory of a dream. Perhaps I was really there. I found myself on a piece of land, the cobblestones cracked and broken, a little spur of rock big enough for perhaps five people to stand easily. I was close to the edge, sitting there, my hands clutching at the edge, staring off over the edge. It was at an angle and I could see emptiness all around me, so vast that my vision dissolved into hazy gray simply because I could not see far enough to define the boundaries. I was terrified. There were other islands around me, fragments, tilted here and there and drifting – like the ocean had come in and washed the world away and now we were just floating in the outgoing tide, little pieces of flotsam. There, I saw the shattered husk of a house, further on, a piece of a street with a signpost I couldn't make out. The body of a whale, so far out I could not tell if it were alive or if it were one of the ghosts of the slaughterhouse, spilling blood from its belly.

I tried to cry out, to speak, but I could not find my voice. I was so frightened, even more so than when I'd encountered the overseers. It is impossible to tell how long it took before I realized I wasn't alone. I was too frightened to move, lest I lose my balance and fall forever. I wasn't certain what compelled me to turn my head. Some instinct, some biding, perhaps. But I did, slowly, and stared up at a man. He stood over me, arms crossed across his jacket, his dark hair cut short and his shoulders were broad. I did not think he was pleased to see me there and I shivered at his feet, wishing I could wake from this. His eyes were fixed one me, if they could even be called eyes, for they were black. Utterly black, pools of liquid darkness, like the ocean at night. I was fixed in his gaze and I could not speak, I could not move. I could only lay there and stare up at him while he stared down and I knew I was being... evaluated. Measured. Then, he turned away from me and vanished, and I woke.

It was the middle of the night. The moon was streaming in through the window. I was covered in sweat and I knew that he had found me wanting. I knew this with more certainty than I've known anything in my life.

After that, I stopped dreaming entirely. Some time later, close to the cold months, I stopped sleeping as well.

My last memory of that year came at night. I was walking the streets. They were deserted at this hour and whether it was because of fear of plague or because the curfew was in effect at this time, I do not recall. I had the rune with me and I felt a strange apprehension that caused me to walk faster, though I could not pinpoint the source. Faster and faster, until I was at the verge of running, until I finally ducked down into a narrow street where the buildings crowded in on either side and the stoops of the houses were like claws reaching out for the unwary. I started to calm down and as if to reassure myself, I took the rune out from under my shirt and held it in my hand. I'm not certain why. The rune never did anything to reassure me of anything.

There was no noise. No warning. Just the cold press of metal against my throat. I tilted my head back on instinct, letting the blade guide my movements, and I was conscious of a presence at my back, pressed close. His body was warm against mine, his breath touched the top of my hair. I saw the knife he had at my neck, the moonlight turning it white along the edge.

"That rune," he whispered, his voice low. "I've come for it."

He reached for it with his free hand, his gloved hand brushing my wrist, his fingers lighting on the whalebone I held. But he didn't take it from my hand, not yet. My fingers were tight around it until the rough points dug into my skin.

"You need to let it go," he murmured and I knew he wasn't talking about the physical act of releasing it. There was something more that he referred to.

I exhaled, my breath shaky. The knife at my throat never wavered. I wondered if he'd actually use it in the way it was intended. I thought of the whales at the slaughterhouse. Would I bleed out like them, tiny pieces of at a time, singing my song until only the echoes remained?

"I don't sleep anymore," I whispered.

His touch against my hand relaxed. Gentle.

"I know," he replied and his tone made me think that it wasn't because he'd been watching me, but because he'd just seen this happen before. To other people.

"I dreamed of a shattered world," I continued. "There was a man there."

A pause.

"Give me the rune, woman," he said. "Just let it go."

It took an effort of will. Everything in me screamed against it, like when my instinct had warred against me at the overseer's song. I wanted to fight him, even though I had nothing, even though I had a knife at my neck. Yet, I let go, I forced my fingers to relax and the rune fell from my hand to his. He took it out of my sight and I felt like something had released inside me and let go.

No. Perhaps that is not the right word. Something broke.

He took the knife away and stepped back. I turned to regard him. He was a hard man, his hair slicked back, his eyes narrow and cold, and there was a scar across the outside corner of one eye.

"I feel like I should know you," I whispered.

Something flickered across his face. Amusement, perhaps? He looked me up and down and then those eyes settled on my face, his eyes locked with mine.

"No," he said, "you shouldn't. And hope you never have reason to know my name. If you ever come across another one of those runes, drop it in the water as close to the Flooded District as you can. It'll find its way from there."

Then he turned and was gone. Like the darkness took him away, piece by piece. I was left alone, wondering if this had all been a dream. I didn't learn his name until weeks later when I saw a wanted poster. Daud. He'd been the one to come and take my rune. I thought I should be glad to be alive.

I found a token, months later. It was in the debris on the street, refuse from the plague victims. I heard it singing to me, a higher pitched song than my rune had been. It was made of whalebone, three sticks of it fastened at the center, and it felt warm in my hand. I did as Daud told me. I carried it to the water, as close to the district as I dared, and I dropped it in. I watched it until the water took it away and I could no longer see it. It sang to me the entire time, as if it were calling out to me. I wept.

I think, one of these days, that the plague will take me. I'll feel it heavy in my lungs and know what my fate will be. When that time comes I'll go to the docks, there near the slaughterhouse where the whales sing, and I'll walk into the ocean. I'll walk along the bottom until the water covers my head and then I'll keep going, down into the depths until the light vanishes and there is darkness all around me. I'll breath in the water and wash away the poison in my lungs.

Maybe I'll even hear the whales singing again, when that time comes.

* * *

_Author's Note: You'd think I'd have written a fanfic for this game already, considering how much I've played it... but I tend to stay away from fandoms I really really love lest I screw them up. And I adore the Outsider. Maybe I'll give him a speaking role someday. Or not. Anyway. You can find me on fictionpress and deviantart as fainting-goat and my book is on amazon as Mortal Gods by Bonnie Quinn._


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